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			<em>REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov</em></p>
	

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	<em><span>It's party-time on spaceship Nursultan.</span></em></p>
<p> <keyword id="6380984" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Kazakhstan">KAZAKHSTAN</keyword>'S capital, Astana, celebrated its 15th anniversary on July 6th with a petrodollar-fuelled party. It happened also to be the 73rd birthday of the country's strongman president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who commissioned this epitome of surreal bombast rising from the Central Asian steppe.</p>
<p> During the festivities, crowds gathered around Astana's architectural landmarks as the president's graven image gazed benevolently down from a bas-relief on a high white column meant to represent the country emerging from the ashes of the <keyword id="6365126" type="COUNTRY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Soviet-Union">Soviet Union</keyword>. Mr Nazarbayev has ruled this state of 17m people, scattered over a territory the size of <keyword id="155805" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Western-Europe">Western Europe</keyword>, with an iron fist. He is one of only two Central Asian leaders to have been in power since before the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. <keyword id="359772" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Islam-Karimov">Islam Karimov</keyword>, next door in Uzbekistan, is the other. (They loathe each other.)</p>
<p> Without Mr Nazarbayev, Astana would not exist. In 1997 it replaced leafy Almaty, 750 miles (1,200km) to the south near the Chinese border, as Kazakhstan's capital (though Almaty remains the bigger city). In the days when <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> prices were high, the president decreed that a space-age metropolis would rise from the marshy land on the left bank of the Yesil river. The city bakes in summer and plunges to -40°C in winter. For the president, Astana is the site for flights of architectural fancy as extreme as the continental climate. The capital is meant both to awe his adoring public and to beam soft power across the Central Asian steppe where Kazakhstan, as the economic powerhouse, has pretensions to regional leadership.</p>
<p> Astana has all the weirdness of <keyword id="55327" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Pyongyang">Pyongyang</keyword> and little of the human scale of Canberra. It is a collection of monuments and boulevards on a scale that screams "L'état, c'est moi". The president surveys his city from his marble-clad, blue-and-gold-domed palace. The <keyword id="17020" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Jewel">jewel</keyword> in Astana's crown is usually reckoned to be a <keyword id="353618" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Norman-Foster">Norman Foster</keyword> pyramid, the Palace of Peace and Accord. It flashes neon at night, houses an academy of Turkic studies and is supposed to promote reconciliation among the world's religions. It is one of several buildings that displays Mr Nazarbayev's obsession for hosting conventions, expositions and conferences.</p>
<p>
	A study in Asian authoritarian kitsch is provided by the Bayterek tower, which is meant to represent a poplar tree holding the golden egg of the Samruk, the mythical bird of Kazakh happiness. On the observation deck, 100 metres (330 feet) above ground, visitors may lay their hand in the gilded imprint of the president's and make a wish. More visually pleasing is the Khan Shatyr ("the Khan's Marquee"), a vast transparent tent made of space-age fabric. Meant to echo the nomads that exist no more, the 35-acre (14-hectare) site houses, among other things, a shopping mall and a beach resort. It is where Mr Nazarbayev held a lavish 70th-birthday bash.</p>
<p> The ruler is a modern-day khan himself, with a thriving cult industry. He is immortalised in statues, in films and in print as a children's fairy-tale hero. He rules Kazakhstan as a one-man show, rigging elections, muzzling the media and brooking no opposition. Yet Western leaders beat a path to his door. Britain's prime minister, <keyword id="6430216" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="David-Cameron">David Cameron</keyword>, was in Astana this month drumming up business. A former British prime minister, <keyword id="63764" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Tony-Blair">Tony Blair</keyword>, has a consultancy contract as Mr Nazarbayev's sultan of spin. The president longs for the Nobel peace prize.</p>
<p> He is no crude dictator. He has a popular <keyword id="30450" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="40" keywordseo="Touch">touch</keyword>, and many Kazakhstanis like the political stability and rising living standards his regime supplies. Elsewhere in the region, both are in short supply. Yet, in one of the world's top 20 oil producers, the dollars are not trickling down to everyone. In late 2011 a growing gulf between haves and have-nots came into focus when security forces opened fire on striking oil workers in the western energy hub of Zhanaozen, killing 15. The turmoil erupted just as Mr Nazarbayev was opening his latest architectural indulgence in Astana, an arch marking Kazakhstan's 20th year of independence. The contrast between Astana's spaceship cityscape and the shabby streets of Zhanaozen, with their crumbling, Soviet-era, rabbit-hutch housing, could hardly be greater.</p>
<p>
	Astana's name could scarcely be more mundane: it means "capital" in Kazakh. Yet its Persian derivation has connotations of a "royal porte", and the widespread belief among Kazakhstanis is that the city will one day be renamed Nursultan, after the man who had it built. Mr Nazarbayev has modestly rejected such an idea, but does not appear to mind his capital assuming his name after he is gone. It must be the second best thing to being immortal.</p>
<p>
	Click <a href="http://www.store.eiu.com">here</a> to subscribe to <keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword></p>
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	</p>

Kazakhstan Economy: Laying The Golden Egg

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov</span></p><p class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) talks to Uzbek President Islam Karimov during a signing ceremony following their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, April 26, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Uzbekistan has long been the most stable country in a region that has struggled to establish itself on solid ground in the decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.</p><p>But that stability could be fragile in the coming months as the country wrangles with its first transfer of power since it gained independence in 1991.</p><p>Uzbekistan announced on Friday that its longtime president, Islam Karimov, was dead at 78 years old. His health had been declining in recent years and his daughter announced earlier this week that he had suffered a brain hemorrhage.</p><p>Karimov was an authoritarian ruler who kept tight control over Uzbekistan's population, crushing any dissent and preventing extreme Islamists from gaining too much power in the country. Uzbekistan's location near Afghanistan and other, less-stable countries in central Asia makes it a potential target for radical jihadists in the region.</p><p>It's not immediately clear who will take over for him, but if the transition isn't smooth, the country could see a vacuum open up.</p><p>"It's certainly something to be concerned about, and if there's no easy and quick consensus on who's going to be leading Uzbekistan, that means the transition might not go as smoothly as hoped," Paul Stronski, a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Business Insider.</p><p>"This has all been happening behind the scenes."</p><p>Stronski <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/03/21/uzbekistan-at-twenty-five-what-next-pub-63083">wrote earlier this year</a> that Uzbekistan's "political system, security apparatus, and economy will be put to the test in the coming years."</p><p>"The country's ability to weather that test will have implications for the rest of the region," he wrote.</p><p><span>Stronski added: </span>"Its success will make it possible for Uzbekistan's neighbors to continue along their current trajectories. However, if it stumbles and creates any sort of instability in the heart of Central Asia, the consequences for the entire region - and, perhaps, even for key outside players like Russia and China - could be dire."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov</span></p><p class="caption">A man leaves an electoral booth at polling station in Tashkent December 23, 2007. Uzbeks voted in an election expected to extend President Islam Karimov's 18-year rule and condemned by human rights activists as a Soviet-style one-man contest.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>But so far, all signs point to as smooth a transition as could be expected.</p><p>"The less we know about what's going on behind the scenes the smoother it is," Stronski said. And so far, the political transition "seems to be going on behind the scenes."</p><p>"My sense is this is more of a long-term problem more of a short-term problem," he added.</p><p>Geopolitical expert and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer agreed.</p><p>"It's probably a smooth transition near-term because all the likely would-be successors want to protect their power," Bremmer told Business Insider in an email.</p><p>The most likely successors are Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev or the head of the country's national security service, which Bremmer compared to Russia's FSB.</p><p>"If either come to power the key elites will get behind them, at least for the near term," Bremmer said. "If it's somebody else, they'll need the security services behind them. There's little likelihood of popular dissent in that scenario, and any demonstrations would be suppressed quickly (and brutally)."</p><p>Still, because it's unclear who will take over and how they will rule, there's uncertainty.</p><p>"We're in unknown territory," Stronski said. "This is a very repressive state. … This is a state that knows how to use its power." But, Stronski added, "anybody stepping in is not going to be the same father and grandfather of the country" that Karimov was.</p><p>"So it needs maneuvering to figure out who is acceptable and can pass the legitimacy test with the population," he said.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Muhammadsharif Mamatkulov</span></p><p class="caption">A member of Uzbekistan's national security service, the SNB, stands guard during an operation to destroy drugs at a metallurgical plant outside the capital Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 25, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Bremmer also said he's concerned for the long-term situation in Uzbekistan.</p><p>"Longer term is a different story; Karimov's rule has been unquestioned for decades," he said. "Managing intra-regime conflicts as they emerge will be an open question for whoever his successor is."</p><p>And with the new ruler, Russia is likely to attempt to bring Uzbekistan "closer to its orbit," Stronski said.</p><p>"I think the Russians are watching carefully," he said. "Their first interest is stability and their second interest is to make sure it doesn't move too far from them, particularly toward the West."</p><p>Uzbekistan hasn't been oriented as closely to Russia as some other post-Soviet republics, but that could start to change.</p><p>"Russia will see upside from a transition," Bremmer said. "Uzbekistan [was] kept arm's length from most Russia-led regional institutions under Karimov; the post-Karimov Uzbekistan will be warmer (particularly if the pro-Moscow prime minister takes over)."</p><p>In any case, Uzbekistan is a notoriously opaque country - so it might be a while before we see how the transition of power plays out.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/james-carville-rant-hillary-clinton-foundation-trump-2016-8">'PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE': James Carville goes on an impassioned rant in defense of the Clinton Foundation</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NrcHhoNTE6x7QbEHoIiE-r6furK-K5x0" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Central Asia's most populous country will have its first transition of power in 25 years - and it could get dicey

<p><span><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/archive/UZBEKISTAN-ELECTION--RC17170915C0.html">Anvar Ilyasov/Reuters</a></span></p><p class="caption">Shavkat Mirziyoyev</p></div><p></p></div></div>For more than three years, Saodat Mananova, a 63-year-old schoolteacher from ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, could not get her late husband's savings from a state-run bank.</span></span></p><p>The sum was modest, $1,400, the will was in her name, but bank officials kept coming up with new documents she had to submit, or invented excuses to delay the payment, the frail, gray-haired woman said.</p><p><span>The situation was typical for Uzbekistan, which ranked 153 on the list of 168 nations in the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, a Berlin-based graft monitor.</span></p><p>Then a miracle happened. In late October, Mananova followed her niece's advice and sent an email to the nascent "online reception" of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/mirziyoyev-scores-landslide-win-presidential-poll-161205131549888.html" target="_self">Shavkat Mirziyoyev</a>, Uzbekistan's prime minister since 2003 and acting president.</p><p>Within days, bank officials delivered the money in cash, apologised profusely, and begged her to sign a document saying she was happy with their performance.</p><p><span>"They used to look at me like I was an insect," Mananova told Al Jazeera. "After the letter, they looked like somebody gave them a good beating." </span></p><p><span>The "online reception" has received more than 200,000 complaints from average Uzbeks who wanted to solve their problems with corrupt officials, unjust judges, and abusive police officers, Mirziyoyev said on Wednesday. It opened shortly after the September 2 death of Uzbekistan's first president Islam Karimov, whose generation-long rule began before the 1991 Soviet collapse. </span></p><p><span>The reception has become the most outspoken novelty introduced by Mirziyoyev in stagnant Uzbekistan - along with other changes such as an upcoming liberation of currency exchange or abolition of visas for tourists from 17 countries. It also became a perfect propaganda tool to boost Mirziyoyev's appeal ahead of the Sunday's presidential election.</span></p><p><span>"Of course I voted for him," Mananova said.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Uzbekistan-Elections/45da499fc71545668bf24d52f0d28032/7/0">AP Photo/Anvar Ilyasov</a></span></p><p class="caption">Uzbekistan's election</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Mirziyoyev won 88.6 percent of the vote, becoming the second president of the most populous, authoritarian, and strategically located Muslim nation of ex-Soviet Central Asia. The vote was predictable as Mirziyoyev's campaign mimicked six election triumphs of Karimov that Western observers never called free or fair.</span></p><p><span><span>One observer, the European Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said there were signs of vote-rigging, no "genuine competition" with three other presidential hopefuls, and a need "for comprehensive reforms" in Uzbekistan.</span></span></p><p>Reforms are on many people's minds in the nation of 31 million dogged by unsolved problems.</p><p><span>"Shavkat Mirziyoyev loudly praises his predecessor, at the same time emphasising the necessity of changes," Daniil Kislov, a Moscow-based Central Asia expert whose <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/ferghananews.com">website is blocked in Uzbekistan</a>, told Al Jazeera.</span></p><p><span>Uzbekistan is high on the list of the world's most repressive societies.</span></p><p><span>At least one million university students and government employees are forced to pick cotton each authumn for weeks or even months, and farmers are coerced to grow the fibre and sell it to the government at low, fixed prices. The government has kept a Soviet-era monopoly on the cotton industry exports despite chronic droughts that <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/03/water-wars-imminent-central-asia-160321064118684.html" target="_self">threaten to turn Central Asia into a desert</a>.  </span></p><p><span>Dozens of political activists and thousands of peaceful Muslims have been jailed for their alleged anti-government sentiments and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/01/torture-death-uzbek-muslims-jail-201516102547473124.html" target="_self">membership of "terrorist" groups</a>, rights groups say. Corruption, complicated laws and blatant expropriations have driven many foreign investors out, and local businessmen deal with unbearable bribes - or face jail.</span></p><p>Millions of Uzbeks became labour migrants working menial jobs mostly in Russia and neighbouring Kazakhstan despite corruption, rights abuses and hate attacks. Uzbekistan nearly sealed borders with two of its impoverished neighbours, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and its relations with other ex-Soviet neighbours and Afghanistan are far from cordial.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Russian Prime Minister Medvedev meets his Uzbek counterpart Mirziyoyev in Samarkand</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>Memberships of Moscow-led economic and military blocs have been suspended or terminated, and trade with China is tightly regulated. Ties with the West have been severed after the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/05/150511123115026.html" target="_self">2005 bloodbath in the eastern city of Andijan</a>, where government troops mowed down a crowd of mostly peaceful protesters, killing hundreds.</span></p><p><span>After Western demands to conduct an independent investigation into the Andijan massacre, Karimov kicked out a US military base from the Afghan border, but kept a NATO outpost in exchange for a portion of used Western weapons withdrawn from Afghanistan.</span></p><p>Independent media have been shut down or driven out of Uzbekistan, and an internet firewall keeps most Uzbeks away from independent news sources. State-run television networks and newspapers resemble Soviet-era propaganda with a sprinkle of medieval verbosity.</p><p><span>Even Karimov's death was shrouded in rumours and controversy. He died on September 2, officials said, but independent sources claimed the death occurred days earlier.  </span></p><p><span>Defying the Uzbek constitution that puts a Senate speaker in charge in case of a president's death, Mirziyoyev assumed the title of interim president and headed a lavish funeral ceremony for Karimov in his ancient Silk Road home city of Samarkand - a Soviet-era indicator of who's going to be in charge. </span></p><p><span>"There was a double violation of the constitution - by Mirziyoyev and the Senate that submitted to his will," Muhammad Solih, an opposition leader who challenged Karimov during the 1991 presidential vote and now lives in exile in Turkey, told Al Jazeera.</span></p><p><span>"Hence, the presidential election that got Mirziyoyev 'elected' is illegitimate."</span> </p><p>So is he qualified to change Karimov's policies and bring about the much-anticipated reforms?</p><p><span>As his resume suggests - not really.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Uzbekistan-Elections/0bd431a2756e440aa6cb5706805a3e04/8/0">AP Photo/Anvar Ilyasov</a></span></p><p class="caption">Shavkat Mirziyoyev</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"As prime minister, Mirziyoyev did not succeed, because corruption in all segments of economy and in law enforcement agencies has reached unprecedented levels. It resulted in a lack of conditions for development of nationwide mechanisms for human rights protection," Nadejda Atayeva, head of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, who fled Uzbekistan and lives in France, told Al Jazeera.</span></p><p><span>Mirziyoyev also appears to have been one of the architects of the cotton industry with its forced labour and fixed, low prices for cotton growers. He served as prime minister since 2003 and governed two key cotton-growing regions before, an expert claims.</span></p><p><span>"He is the chief organiser of forced mobilisation of students and government employees for cotton harvesting," Umida Niyazova, head of the Uzbek German Forum for Human Rights, a non-profit organisation that monitors forced labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry, told Al Jazeera.  </span></p><p><span>Uzbekistan is also not going to resume its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led economic bloc, deputy trade and economy minister Shavkat Tulyaganov said in early December.</span></p><p>The bloc includes five ex-Soviet republics and is widely seen as the Kremlin's attempt to revive the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan's inclusion could significantly mitigate the bureaucratic hurdles Uzbek labour migrants face in Russia.</p><p><span>Mirziyoyev, 59, an irrigation engineer by education, was a mid-level communist official before Uzbekistan's independence from the Soviet Union. He is part of the Samarkand clan Karimov belonged to, and his dogged loyalty to the late boss guaranteed his survival through the political purges of Karimov's iron-fisted rule.</span></p><p><span>This background also suggests Mirziyoyev is hardly going to be a groundbreaking reformer. </span></p><p><span>"Don't expect him to liberalise political life," Kislov said. "Mirziyoyev is Islam Karimov's flesh and blood, and he is interested in keeping, not destroying, the system of authoritarian rule."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dermatologist-best-way-wash-your-face-2016-11">The 3 worst things you do when you wash your face - according to a dermatologist</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pjNjFhMzE6jkiAo_sqqP9a2bfetBkmE0" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Uzbekistan's new president may not be a game-changer for one of the world's most repressive societies

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/DaveDMarko/status/925515221627699200">@DaveDMarko/Twitter</a></span></p><p class="caption">Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, who traveled to the US from Uzbekistan in Central Asia.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The New York attack suspect emigrated from Uzbekistan, which is in a region that has been an extremist hotbed ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.</strong></li><li><strong>Uzbek and Central Asian terrorists have committed attacks in Russia, Turkey, and the United States, and ISIS has recruited thousands of people from the region.</strong></li><li><strong>Central Asia's economic stagnation, repressive governments, and lack of political identities have driven the rise of extremism in the region.</strong></li></ul><p><br />The suspect accused of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-shooting-manhattan-2017-10">killing eight people</a> and injured 11 in lower Manhattan on Tuesday in the deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11 came to the US in 2010 from Uzbekistan. While New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sayfullo-saipov-suspect-new-york-city-terror-attack-truck-2017-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov</a> was "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cuomo-suspect-new-york-terror-attack-radicalized-domestically-2017-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">radicalized domestically</a>," Central Asia has become a fertile ground for extremism since the collapse of the Soviet Union.</p><p>Economic hardships, a lack of political identity, and repressive state power have made the region ripe for recruitment by terrorist groups like ISIS.</p><p>Saipov, 29, currently in police custody, was living in <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/us/sayfullo-saipov-new-york-attack/index.html">New Jersey</a>, and originally immigrated to the US from Uzbekistan via <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-diversity-visa-lottery-trump-eliminate-nyc-terror-attack-2017-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the diversity visa lottery</a>. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sayfullo-saipov-suspect-new-york-city-terror-attack-truck-2017-10">A note</a> found near the truck at the scene of the attacks suggests he carried it out in the name of ISIS, although the terrorist group has yet to claim responsibility for it.</p><p>Uzbekistan is a Muslim-majority Turkic-speaking country that shares a border with Afghanistan to the south. It gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 along with the rest of Central Asia.</p><p>In recent years, terrorists from the country have committed <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/where-are-central-asia-extremism-578989">high-profile attacks</a> in Sweden and Turkey. A local insurgent extremist group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has been conducting attacks and military operations in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for decades.</p><p>Today, the group is trying to create its own caliphate alongside ISIS's in the Middle East, according to Newsweek.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;ITEMID=RC17B2497D40&amp;RW=1734&amp;RH=960">REUTERS/Ashlee Espinal</a></span></p><p class="caption">Police are pictured in front of what according to local media is the apartment of Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack in Paterson, New Jersey on November 1, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As a whole, the Central Asian countries, which lie between Iran and Afghanistan to the south and Russia to the north, have endured terrorism from a variety of different local groups ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, and up to 4,000 fighters from Central Asia have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria, according to <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/where-are-central-asia-extremism-578989">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>Central Asia's recent history and geopolitics are largely to blame for this. With little previous history of autonomous governance, the region's culture, ethnic traditions, and religion were all repressed under the Soviet Union, and when independence finally came, experts told Newsweek that people were searching for a new identity to fill the vacuum.</p><p>"In the 1990s when Communism collapsed, tradition withered away, and there wasn't much prosperity. Conditions were ripe for a new ideology, and some people, especially young men looking to become heroes, were drawn to that," Anna Matleeva, a visiting senior research fellow in the department for war studies at King's College London, told Newsweek, referring to the appeal of extremist Islamism.</p><p>Other factors added to this appeal - a stagnant economy in the 1990s that was compounded by <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f1b4c856-bee7-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464">an oil recession</a> in 2014 has led to a lack of economic opportunities. Repressive state policies toward religion likes those of Uzbekistan's President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islam-karimov-uzbekistan-strongman-who-exploited-anti-terror-fight-dies-at-78/2016/09/02/3e08f846-7059-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html">Islam Karimov</a> have contributed to deep animosity toward the state in Central Asian countries, according to the Washington Post.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Uzbek border guards keep watch on a bridge across the Kara-Su border river between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Karimov and other dictators in the region, including President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, have reportedly taken advantage of the war on terror to crack down on moderate and radical Islamism alike in their countries, jailing political opponents, and heavily regulating the media, according to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f1b4c856-bee7-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464">the Financial Times.</a> Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned such measures.</p><p>Because of such local stressors, Russia, which shares a long land border with the region, has <a href="https://journal-neo.org/2015/10/10/threat-of-terrorism-in-central-asia/">long feared</a> conflicts flaring up in Central Asia. It had been the primary target for fighters from Muslim territories Chechnya for years, and ISIS has radicalized and recruited many migrant workers from Central Asia residing in Moscow.</p><p>As Central Asia's terrorist profile has continued to grow, attacks like Monday's massacre along with <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/the-brothers-masha-gessen-tsarnaev-brothers-book">the 2013 Boston bombing</a> committed by Muslim Chechens wil likely continue to become more prevalent in Europe and the US.</p><p>Experts say <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-isis-recruits-uzbekistan-kyrgyzstan-19067">the best ways</a> to start to alleviate the problem of terrorism in Central Asia is to make everyday life better for the people who live there - by improving public education, minimizing corruption, and strengthening democratic institutions.</p>        <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ryan-roast-trump-about-his-staff-shakeups-and-his-twitter-habit-al-smith-charity-dinner-2017-10">Watch Paul Ryan roast Trump about his staff shakeups and his Twitter habit at the Al Smith charity dinner</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Here's how the region the New York attacker immigrated from became fertile ground for terrorism

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.stacygottula.com/listing.cfm">Stacy Gottula/Coldwell Banker</a></p></div></div>The youngest daughter of Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov is supposedly the new owner of an extravagant Bel Air mansion <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mohamed-hadid-designed-crescent-palace-in-bel-air-hits-market-at-58-million-2012-6">that was listed for $58 million last June</a>, celebrity <keyword id="6354553" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="real-estate">real estate</keyword> blogger <a href="http://realestalker.blogspot.com/2013/07/your-mama-hears.html">The Real Estalker reports</a>.</p>
<p>There's no word yet on the final price <span>Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva </span>paid for the over-the-top abode, which was designed by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/beverly-hills-mansion-on-shahs-of-sunset-photos-2012-4">celebrity designer Mohamed Hadid</a> and is registered to a corporate entity, according to the Real Estalker.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hadid, known for developing Ritz Carlton Hotels and his appearances on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," originally designed the home <span>— </span>called Crescent Palace <span>— </span>for himself, but later decided to sell it. The mansion has s</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">even bedrooms, a 90-foot art gallery, and a subterranean mecca with a screening room, a ball room, and a </span><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mediterranean</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">-inspired indoor pool.</span></p>

HOUSE OF THE DAY: The Uzbek Dictator's Daughter Reportedly Just Bought An Insane Bel Air Mansion

<p><em><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image"><p class="source">REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov</p></div></div><br /></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">It's party-time on spaceship Nursultan.</span></em></p>
<p><keyword id="6380984" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Kazakhstan">KAZAKHSTAN</keyword>'S capital, Astana, celebrated its 15th anniversary on July 6th with a petrodollar-fuelled party. It happened also to be the 73rd birthday of the country's strongman president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who commissioned this epitome of surreal bombast rising from the Central Asian steppe.</p>
<p>During the festivities, crowds gathered around Astana's architectural landmarks as the president's graven image gazed benevolently down from a bas-relief on a high white column meant to represent the country emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union. Mr Nazarbayev has ruled this state of 17m people, scattered over a territory the size of Western Europe, with an iron fist. He is one of only two Central Asian leaders to have been in power since before the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Islam Karimov, next door in Uzbekistan, is the other. (They loathe each other.)</p>
<p>Without Mr Nazarbayev, Astana would not exist. In 1997 it replaced leafy Almaty, 750 miles (1,200km) to the south near the Chinese border, as Kazakhstan's capital (though Almaty remains the bigger city). In the days when <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> prices were high, the president decreed that a space-age metropolis would rise from the marshy land on the left bank of the Yesil river. The city bakes in summer and plunges to -40°C in winter. For the president, Astana is the site for flights of architectural fancy as extreme as the continental climate. The capital is meant both to awe his adoring public and to beam soft power across the Central Asian steppe where Kazakhstan, as the economic powerhouse, has pretensions to regional leadership.</p>
<p>Astana has all the weirdness of Pyongyang and little of the human scale of Canberra. It is a collection of monuments and boulevards on a scale that screams "L'état, c'est moi". The president surveys his city from his marble-clad, blue-and-gold-domed palace. The jewel in Astana's crown is usually reckoned to be a Norman Foster pyramid, the Palace of Peace and Accord. It flashes neon at night, houses an academy of Turkic studies and is supposed to promote reconciliation among the world's religions. It is one of several buildings that displays Mr Nazarbayev's obsession for hosting conventions, expositions and conferences.</p>
<p>A study in Asian authoritarian kitsch is provided by the Bayterek tower, which is meant to represent a poplar tree holding the golden egg of the Samruk, the mythical bird of Kazakh happiness. On the observation deck, 100 metres (330 feet) above ground, visitors may lay their hand in the gilded imprint of the president's and make a wish. More visually pleasing is the Khan Shatyr ("the Khan's Marquee"), a vast transparent tent made of space-age fabric. Meant to echo the nomads that exist no more, the 35-acre (14-hectare) site houses, among other things, a shopping mall and a beach resort. It is where Mr Nazarbayev held a lavish 70th-birthday bash.</p>
<p>The ruler is a modern-day khan himself, with a thriving cult industry. He is immortalised in statues, in films and in print as a children's fairy-tale hero. He rules Kazakhstan as a one-man show, rigging elections, muzzling the media and brooking no opposition. Yet Western leaders beat a path to his door. Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, was in Astana this month drumming up business. A former British prime minister, Tony Blair, has a consultancy contract as Mr Nazarbayev's sultan of spin. The president longs for the Nobel peace prize.</p>
<p>He is no crude dictator. He has a popular touch, and many Kazakhstanis like the political stability and rising living standards his regime supplies. Elsewhere in the region, both are in short supply. Yet, in one of the world's top 20 oil producers, the dollars are not trickling down to everyone. In late 2011 a growing gulf between haves and have-nots came into focus when security forces opened fire on striking oil workers in the western energy hub of Zhanaozen, killing 15. The turmoil erupted just as Mr Nazarbayev was opening his latest architectural indulgence in Astana, an arch marking Kazakhstan's 20th year of independence. The contrast between Astana's spaceship cityscape and the shabby streets of Zhanaozen, with their crumbling, Soviet-era, rabbit-hutch housing, could hardly be greater.</p>
<p>Astana's name could scarcely be more mundane: it means "capital" in Kazakh. Yet its Persian derivation has connotations of a "royal porte", and the widespread belief among Kazakhstanis is that the city will one day be renamed Nursultan, after the man who had it built. Mr Nazarbayev has modestly rejected such an idea, but does not appear to mind his capital assuming his name after he is gone. It must be the second best thing to being immortal.</p>
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You Searched For "Islam Karimov" and got 6 results

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Here's how the region the New York attacker immigrated from became fertile ground for terrorism

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: The Uzbek Dictator's Daughter Reportedly Just Bought An Insane Bel Air Mansion

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